Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

edosan wrote:

Is Horst coherent, though? Question for the ages....)

HIPPY is just coherent in a different flavor. Tie Dye, perhaps? I think his posts are always timely and refreshing.

I think STUPID HIPPY might actually be Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth

For some reason Horst reminds of Professor Irwin Corey. In both cases if you listen long enough they begin to make sense.

Jim Thompson wrote:

For some reason Horst reminds of Professor Irwin Corey. In both cases if you listen long enough they begin to make sense.

Just a sample, for those who may not've had the pleasure:

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxtN0xxzfsw

At the UCSC/ISIM Festival/Conference (International Society of Improvised Music) in Santa Cruz this December, I will be doing a presentation on the relation between honkyoku and improvisation. Here's the description of my presentation, in overly academic language:

"Multiculturalism in western music has often taken the form of stylistic appropriation, as we incorporate the scales, rhythms, and instrumental timbres of an 'exotic' tradition into our own work. But in my study of the Japanese honkyoku music for shakuhachi I have instead been exploring the foundations of improvised musical practice itself. My playing has been influenced less by the unique sounds of the traditional music than by the traditional attitudes toward transmission, performance, and 'ownership.' Many assumptions we make in our western musical practice do not fit within the Japanese philosophical framework, and the new/old approaches offered by an unfamiliar musical culture can inform our improvisation in deep and fascinating ways. I will share some of this in my playing as well as in talking about Japanese aesthetic concepts and attitudes toward pedagogy and improvisation. I will be joined in an extended improvisation by the American butoh dancer Deborah Butler, whose work also demonstrates how a deep study of another cultural tradition (a more modern one in this case) informs dance improvisation in radical and unexpected ways."

I think this is an important issue -- the difference between the first wave sensual or "orientalist" use of world music and the post-Cage post-Coltrane exploration of underlying musical approaches.

The website for the conference is http://music.ucsc.edu/improvisation/home.html . And if you're a serious free improviser on ANY instrument, I highly recommend joining ISIM -- I really like their work and their conferences.

Duet with Peter Bloom...
Added another improvisation to the improvisation and shakuhachi sections of philjamesmusic.com ( http://philjamesmusic.com ) --  a duet with the very excellent flute player Peter Bloom. I really like his work on this track -- check it out for an interesting combination of Western and honkyoku techniques.